Saltivka has been relentlessly shelled by Russia. Among the ruins, a few residents are trying to survive.
Saltivka, in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, has been relentlessly bombarded by the Russians. Among the ruins, a few residents are trying to survive.A resident of Saltivka building 54 looks down from his balcony at a shell crater beneath. "This is the Russian world," he said
When there is no shelling, Saltivka falls silent. "Saltivka is like Chernobyl now," said Serhiy Khrystych, 44, as he washed his face with water from a plastic bottle, in building 80. "Of course there was the radiation in Chernobyl, but it was not destroyed. We do not have the radiation but everything here is destroyed," he said. "It is impossible to live."All around Saltivka, burn marks rise up from the windows where fires raged.
Tamara's husband died in March, a month after the invasion. "Because of the stress," she said. So she is mostly alone in their apartment, and nearly alone in the building. "I miss him," she said. "I don't even have the desire to go outside." "Maybe the building will have to be destroyed, because the second part of it is destroyed and the third part is very much destroyed," Valeriy said.
Serhiy Zhuravliov, a 51-year-old, lifelong Saltivka resident who was helping deliver the food, said he had stayed in the neighbourhood throughout the invasion and the worst of fighting nearby, when Ukrainian troops were stationed in the residential buildings and the frontline was on the doorstep. But Larisa was worried about something else. There were big cracks in the walls on the 11th floor, she said, and she thought the building could collapse. "It is a risk even to stand on the balcony now," she said.Saltivka's buildings are marked by distinctive holes from rockets and shells. Some still contain unexploded ordnance
The Russians attempted to seize Kharkiv in the early days of the invasion and Saltivka bore the brunt of the assault. The invaders were eventually pushed back, and the frontline now sits about 12 miles from the city centre. But Saltivka remains well within Russian artillery range, a reality made impossible to ignore by the daily shelling.
But Kharkiv is just 20 miles from the Russian border, a traditionally Russian-leaning, Russian-speaking city, and there are pockets of sympathy towards the invaders.
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